Archive by category | Quality measures

How Nature selects papers for publication

How Nature selects papers for publication

This is a shortened version of an editorial in Nature ( 463, 850; 2010 ; free to read online). One myth that never seems to die is that Nature‘s editors seek to inflate the journal’s impact factor by sifting through submitted papers (some 16,000 last year) in search of those that promise a high citation rate. We don’t. Not only is it difficult to predict what a paper’s citation performance will be, but citations are an unreliable measure of importance. Take two papers in synthetic organic chemistry, both published in June 2006. One, ‘Control of four stereocentres in a triple  … Read more

Nature Neuroscience on gaps in ethical oversight of research

Nature Neuroscience on gaps in ethical oversight of research

Although institutional review boards are important ethical gatekeepers of human patient research, there is little data to evaluate their effectiveness. More coordination and a more transparent decision-making process is critical if review boards are to make appropriate and consistent decisions – so says the Editorial in this month’s (February) issue of Nature Neuroscience (13, 141; 2010). From the Editorial: “An ethical overview is meant to be more than just another bureaucratic hurdle in doing research; it is a guarantee that all research is held to certain minimum standards and, particularly for human patient research, it is an assurance that the  … Read more

Cite well, says Nature Chemical Biology

Cite well, says Nature Chemical Biology

Scientists need to devote more attention to the citation lists of scientific papers—the connectivity and usefulness of the scientific literature depend upon it. The February Editorial in Nature Chemical Biology ( 6, 79; 2009) explores how “citations of published work link together the concepts, technologies and advances that define scientific disciplines. Though information technology and databases have helped us to better manage the expanding scientific literature, the quality of our citation maps still hinges on the quality of the bibliographic information contained in each published paper. Because article citations are increasingly used as metrics of researcher productivity, the citation record  … Read more

EMBO reports working for the clampdown

EMBO reports working for the clampdown

Howy Jacobs lampoons the pervasive spread of time management and organization in academic research in his Editorial in the December issue of EMBO reports (10, 1281; 2009). “Following its successful trial in the university system during the past three years, time-management reporting is now to be extended to all citizens of the European Union (EU). The university trial concerned the apportionment of working time between different activities and was required by EU legislation to implement the so-called ‘full-cost model’ to all externally funded research in the academic sector. In essence, this enabled university finance departments to guarantee that external funding  … Read more

EMBO reports asks “Is the end in cite?”

In a Correspondence to EMBO reports ( 10, 1186; 2009), Mark Patterson asks how we can avoid Howy Jacobs’s “light-hearted nightmare scenario” of the future of citation-based metrics. Patterson, director of publishing at the Public Library of Science (PLoS), presents his own organization’s article-level metrics, as a better alternative to the journal-level metrics that are currently in most common use as research output measures. He writes: “Article-level data are not without their problems, and so it is important to interpret the data carefully. But, we believe that providing the data in the first place will inspire new ideas about how to assess research.  Read more

Visualization tools in estimating quality of scientific output

IN a Correspondence to EMBO reports (10, 800-803; 2009), Beatrix Groneberg-Kloft, David Quarcoo and Cristian Scutaru of the Free University Berlin and Humboldt University, Berlin, describe a combination of scientometric tools and new visualizing techniques such as density equalizing mapping to show that research in the European Union has developed well so far this decade. Despite static levels of research spending as a percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP), the authors write that success of European science should not only be measured in terms of ‘work force’ and spending, but also in terms of its actual output—that is, publications.  Read more

Nature Chemistry on judging scientific success

There are many different criteria that can be taken into account when judging the scientific success of individual researchers, but are some more meaningful than others? Nature Chemistry in its July Editorial (1, 251; 2009) is the latest to address this perennial question. (See, for example, this Nature Network forum on citation use and abuse.)  … Read more

Nature journals’ impact factors for 2008

Thomson Reuters have just announced the 2008 Impact Factors. Nature is the top journal in the multidisciplinary science category by all Thomson Reuters’ new metrics: 5 year Impact Factor, Eigenfactor and article influence score. It is also the top of all journals in the Journal of Citation Reports (Thomson Reuters, 2009) listing (n=6,598) by Eigenfactor score. Here are the 2008 Impact Factors for the Nature journals that publish primary research:  … Read more